Denny had a couple of reel to reel tape decks he had purchased at Sounds Inc. in Boone where he was working at the time. It was decided that he and I would put together a tape of me “calling” from California. We got together one night and I sang and played ‘All My Loving’ with Denny adding some tambourine for fun. He reasoned that my brother Bruce would be in the phone booth with me while I did the tune. We did up some conversation like we imagined we’d have during the phone call along with the tune. To add to the deception, we mentioned to friends that I would be calling Denny and he would record my call so it could be played that night at the dance.
That evening my bandmates set up my amp and guitar on stage along with 2 purple candles my brother had donated to the cause. Denny had planned to ceremonially light the candles during the tape playback. Phil Dorner, who was in the Electric Circus, had brought a tape recorder to the dance that night to record some of the music and had the portion of Road’s set when my “phone call” was played for the crowd. It was something else. The whole gym was so quiet you could hear a pin drop while the tape was playing. At the end of the tape, the whole gym erupted in thunderous applause.
When I got back people were asking about the call and how we did it. Phil Dorner asked how we got such a good quality recording. We stuck to our original story and never told anyone the truth. No one seemed the wiser. As far as the battle of the bands goes Road came in third with the Jury and the Electric Circus taking first and second place respectively. And now you know the rest of the story.
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We did some Beach Boys stuff (when) we played for some friends of mine over in Ames for their graduation party. We were doing “Little Deuce Coupe” and where they start talking about auto parts; Paul Jackson was singing lead for it and got the words all wrong. These guys knew about cars! And they’re sittin’ back there going, “What!?!”. Of course the boys were wanting to put us down anyway because the girls were paying attention to us! So they’re going, “You guys don’t know nothin’ about cars!” I remember one guy saying, “Yeah, but your girl friends don’t care!” These were Ames guys and we were Boone guys and they just got in an uproar over that. But the couple we were playing for (calmed everyone down) and it worked out real well.
It was a wild show. They had me doin’ sound checks. Terry Feldott was runnin’ the sound and a friend of mine, Gary Lyon. They had me doing (it was ridiculous), I practiced an hour and a half doing the sound check. I think they wanted to get me conditioned. I was so burnt out by the time the show came out. It was crazy, 3 ovations. Just incredible! I went back and thought, “I’m finally out of here!”. And Hartford came up and he said, “Al, you gotta go back out again. You can’t (stop now). They’re wantin’ you out there.” I’ve got it all on tape (I hate listening to it), but it was fun. It was a wild night in 1978, Feb. 18th. Had a nice “bad” review on it in the Register. Had two good reviews and one horrible one. (laughter) I was doin’ “Fool Such As I”, Hank Snow and I looked (off-stage) and there was Hartford singing along. That was a neat feeling. The old Boone Community Building, a lot of good times there.
I remember the very first dance we played at. It would have been at the Junior High (building) I believe. It might have been in the basement at the old Sacred Heart Catholic church. We only had about 18 songs. (chuckles) So every set was almost the same songs. Luckily, we’d always say, “We got a request to do this one again” whether we had a request or not. (laughter). “Well we got a request to do this song again”, you know? And people would think well they got a request so they’re going to do that one again. That was fun.
We had TONS of good experiences. The things that I remember are, like, the experiences of here you are up on stage and everybody is thinking “Ooh I wish I was him”, but you’re the one with the girlfriend out there that everybody else is dancin’ with. I can remember thinkin’ my girlfriend danced too many times with the same guy. You get down at a break and be mad. All the hormones were goin’ a little too much and I had to (laughter) prove myself. I have a lot of funny memories that way. I remember our parents, Scott’s parents and my parents more than anybody, but all the parents from time to time were chaperones and supported us.
I remember one time we ticked Spazz off. He tipped his drum set over; that was really funny. (chuckles) He really got ticked off. I don’t know what about. After everybody laughed their ass off, we put it back up and kept playin’. It was just, tip the bass drum over and everything went down.
